Face GPS and So's Your Face

Pet Rocks were a 1970s fad conceived in Los Gatos, California by advertising executive Gary Dahl. The first Pet Rocks were ordinary gray stones bought at a builder’s supply store and marketed as if they were live pets. The fad lasted about six months, ending with the Christmas season in December 1975. During its short run, the Pet Rock made Dahl a millionaire.

In 1975, Dahl established Rock Bottom Productions, a company that sold the rocks for US$3.95 each.

When it comes to trademarks, Facebook is proving to be a bully. It is going after Teachbook in court for using a similar name, and already forced Placebook to change its name. But that is only half the story.

It is not just the word “book” at the end of a company or product name that Facebook might object to. If it has its way, the word “Face” at the beginning of a name might also bring out its lawyers. In fact, Facebook is currently trying to register the word “Face” as a trademark. (It already owns the trademark on “Facebook”). Facebook took over the trademark application for “Face” from a company in the UK called CIS Internet Limited, which operated a site called Faceparty.com. Presumably, Facebook bought the application sometime around November, 2008, which is when its lawyer started dealing with the USPTO.

Time for us to admit another entrant into the hall of unnecessary, but cool inventions. Installed at Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station yesterday, this latest spin on the vending machine dispenses with those silly windows unto what you’re buying and furnishes its user with a 47-inch touch panel from which to make his (or her) selection. An embedded camera will recognize your gender and age, allowing the machine to recommend a beverage suitable to whatever stereotype is attached to your particular circumstances. And don’t worry, it’ll store your purchasing history too, so you can be freaked out by tailored ads every time you use it. 500 more of these WiMAX-equipped units are planned to be installed in and around Tokyo over the next two years, with operating company JR East expecting them to tally up 30 percent more sales than their analog brethren. More bling equals higher revenue? Sounds about right.

One man drove 12,238 miles and across 30 states in the U.S. to scrawl a message that could only be viewed using Google Earth. His big shoutout: “Read Ayn Rand.”

Nick Newcomen did a road trip over 30 days that covered stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. First, he identified on a map the route he would need to drive to spell out the message. He put a GPS device in his car to trace the route he would follow. Then, he hit the road.

“The main reason I did it is because I am an Ayn Rand fan,” he says. “In my opinion if more people would read her books and take her ideas seriously, the country and world would be a better place – freer, more prosperous and we would have a more optimistic view of the future.”

“Efforts by Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, to broaden the debate over data encryption were dismissed by Indian industry groups as unnecessary Friday and appeared unlikely to break a logjam over government demands for access to users’ e-mails by an Aug. 31 deadline.”

“Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.”

The Seabreacher X is the latest and most advanced submersible watercraft that we have built to date: This exciting new version is based on the dolphi- inspired Seabreacher J, but it has a more aggressive Shark-style body. The X model also steps up the performance envelope with a 260hp supercharged engine, propelling the vessel to a top speed of 50mph on the surface and 25mph below.

Commodore USA, LLC, and Commodore Licensing B.V. have finally come to an agreement, meaning that your subsequent purchases will at least come with a Commodore decal. This also paves the way for the company’s newest offering, the Commodore PC64, an Intel Atom-powered PC featuring 4GB DDR3 memory, SATA 1TB HDD, HDMI output, optical drive (either DVD/CD or optional Blu-ray), and more — all in “an exact replica” of the original beige C64 chassis.

In cleveland, ohio, the city is installing RF chips and barcodes on recycling bins. They allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip shows a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables. Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine.

A large-scale scan of the top million web sites was performed in early 2010 using the Nmap Security Scanner and its scripting engine.
They retrieved each site’s icon by first parsing the HTML for a link tag and then falling back to /favicon.ico if that failed.
288,945 images were collected and used to create a visualization where the icons are represented.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (covering California and eight other Western states) recently decided that government agents can put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go – without having to get a warrant.
They say this does not violate your 4th amendment rights because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

! Ice Cream – T-Shirts and 10 Years of GeekSpeak

Next week after the show come down to [The Penny Ice Creamery|http://thepennyicecreamery.com/] ([Penny Ice Creamery on Yelp|http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-penny-ice-creamery-santa-cruz]) at 913 Cedar St, Santa Cruz. You can meet the Geeks, get a t-shirt and be lucky and get a free ice-cream and t-shirt.